Dr. Fred Hatfield (1942- 2017) is, for me, one of the most fascinating fitness figures from the 1980s and 1990s. An established powerlifter, he earned the moniker of Dr. Squat thanks to his strength on the powerlifting platform. At one point, he squatted 1,014 pounds at a bodyweight of 276 lbs., thereby breaking a new world record. What interested me about Hatfield was not his competitive successes but his public profile.
In the current moment, there is a sort of false tension between ‘bioscience’ and ‘evidenced based’ trainers, especially online. Simplified, this is the idea that while some rely on experiments and science, there are others who know what works based on their training experiences. Hatfield, in the 1980s, largely collasped this distinction. He was an exercise scientist, with a PhD no less, who was also someone with ‘in the trenches’ experience. In his writings his advice was always simple, look for what works, regardless of the source, and apply it with discipline.
The other reason I find myself returning to Fred’s books again and again is that he wrote for both the bodybuilders and the powerlifters. This week I was searching for something to post and it dawned on me that I’ve rarely written about Hatfield’s most popular book, Hardcore Bodybuilding: A Scientific Approach. The very title points to that collasping of ‘bro-science’ and ‘science-science’ and the book was Hatfield’s attempts to point weight training, writ large, into a more evidence based space.
The below excerpt does just that, tackling what Hatfield believed to be training myths of the early 1990s. Before you dive in though, I want to point out that there are two ways to read this. The first is that these are all clearly myths and that Hatfield is ‘destroying them’ or whatever terms the YouTube generation seek out. The second, and the historian-minded approach, is to read them as a list of some of the time’s biggest muscle-building debates. Read in the second way, we can see that Hatfield was trying to distinguish this early scientific approach from some of the field’s other ‘tribes.’
Enjoy!
Ironheads often become crusaders for their lifestyle, much in the tradition of the misguided Christians of the dark ages, the Nazis of the darkest ages, and even current-day cultists. In their characteristic zeal, they embrace beliefs that seem at the time of acceptance to be logical and just-or, at least, worth the risk.
Later on, realizing that their belief structure has been based on half-truths, lies, misinterpretations of legitimate research findings, out-of-context quotes, and a host of other tenuous infrastructural lattices, they are forced into a situation not unlike the crusaders, the Nazis, and the Scientologists. They hunker down and defend the beliefs they’ve held dear for so long with an abiding vengeance. You see, their very souls had gone into believing. For them to abandon that which was once held dear for something as trivial as truth would lay waste to their very souls and beings.
Consider this common phenomenon in psychology. A man buys a Chevy. He saved for a long time to buy that car and tried his best to get the most for his money. He tried hard to buy a vehicle that his peers would hold him in high regard for purchasing-a vehicle befitting his social position. Someone comes along and proves to him that, had he bought a Ford, he’d have gotten more for less.
Bang! The mind closes tight and hunkers down into a defensive position. All references to Fords (or any other vehicle) are burned or avoided like the plague. This man had invested too much to admit that he had erred. He doesn’t even want to be reminded of it! Despite the fact that he is patently aware of his mistake, he is obliged, by all he holds dear, to defend his position to the death if necessary.
Such is the human condition, and such is the state of the art and science of bodybuilding, fitness, and sports training. These activities lend themselves to the crusading spirit. They represent a lifestyle which, upon its acceptance, sets the believer apart from all others on the face of planet Earth.
There’s a new day dawning on us. New-age science has spawned breathtaking advances enabling us to make muscle gains like never before. It all started with the electron microscope, then came magnetic resonance imaging, genetic engineering, and a veritable cascade of technological breakthroughs of such a profound nature that 95 percent of the entire history of man’s inventiveness would be cited in the scientific annals of a single quarter century.
Looking to science for your important training questions, and the simpler ones as well, you will be swept away on a journey you won’t believe-on into the innermost regions of space, inside the cells themselves, into the individual organelles comprising the cells, and the genetic codes to which they individually owe their existence. You are minutely advancing toward a profound understanding of the very essence of life itself.
Poof! Gone are the mythic beliefs. Open your minds to modern science! You owe it to yourself to make the gains you have heretofore only dreamed about.
I propose herein to systematically shatter some of the mythic beliefs of irondom. If you’re still not convinced, hopefully you will at least stand back and think. The alternatives to the myths-the truths-are only briefly presented herein. The complete pictures are to be found elsewhere. Be aware that this is not my science. I did not invent it, nor did I singlehandedly interpret it. I merely serve as your humble archivist.
great read! love the no nonsense advice esp re supplements and steroids etc
Thanks Cadence! It’s cool to read right? Goes back a lot to my thinking that what’s old is new in fitness!